Sisters, Strangers, and Starting Over

by Belinda Acosta

  “You guys have your karate gear, right?” Larry asked, as he pulled out of the drive.

  “I do!” Wally said proudly. “He doesn’t.”

  “Who doesn’t?” Larry asked irritably, looking at the boys in his rearview mirror.

  “Shay,” Wally reported.

  “You know they won’t let you participate without your uniform, right?”

  Seamus was mindlessly fingering the zipper on his backpack, looking out the window.

  “Shay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t think we have enough time to stop back at your place to pick it up,” Larry said.

  “We’re not supposed to be late,” Wally said. “Especially on the first day.”

  “Well, I was going to run a couple of errands while you guys were in class. I guess you’ll just have to come with me,” Larry said. “How come you didn’t bring your uniform? I told your mother.”

  “She packed our bags herself,” Wally said. “She must have forgot.”

  Larry was annoyed. “Yeah, she must have forgot.”

  The karate class was only a twenty-minute drive, and Larry was pleased to find a parking spot right in front of the building. At least something had gone right that morning. Wally and Raúl had already climbed out of the vehicle and gone into the building, when Larry realized they had left their permission slips in the car.

  “Oh, shoot!” he said, unbuckling himself and getting out of the SUV. “I’ll be right back.”

  “I need to show you something,” Seamus said.

  “Okay,” Larry said. But once he got a good look at his nephew through his window, he could see that the boy had something serious on his mind. “What’s the matter?”

  “I have to tell you something.”

  “Okay.”

  The boy was struggling to find the words. Larry stood in the open window of the vehicle and waited for his nephew to continue. “Did something happen?”

  “Kinda.”

  Seamus finally opened his backpack and pulled out his karate uniform. He dug into the folds and pulled out an envelope and handed it to his uncle. Larry read the note that was inside. Seamus could tell his uncle got to the worst part when he saw his face fall.

  “Did you read this?” Larry asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “When?”

  “This morning. I was checking my stuff, and that’s when I found it,” Seamus said. “Wally doesn’t know.”

  “Jesus!” Larry said under his breath. He was so lost in his anger and disappointment he didn’t realize Seamus was digging deep to the ends of his toes to ask the question he was dreading to ask.

  “So, I was wondering,” he began slowly. “I was wondering if you would please take care of Wally. He’s little. I can go wherever.”

  Larry had no idea what Seamus was talking about.

  “I—I don’t think Wally would make a good Wednesday’s Child,” Seamus said, thinking his uncle would understand. “I can go to foster care. I won’t be scared, but Wally—he needs someone to help him. I can take care of myself.”

  Larry couldn’t believe what his nephew was saying. He climbed into the backseat with Seamus and sat silently for a long time before he reached over and ruffled his nephew’s hair and then pulled him close and held him in a playful headlock.

  “You’re not going anywhere, you brat. Why do you think you can get rid of us that easy?”

  “Because you don’t have room for us with Celeste in the house, and because Aunt Beatriz wants her there because she’s back from the dead and all that.”

  “We have room,” Larry said. “We’ll make room. Nobody is going to take care of my boys but me and your aunt Beatriz, you got that?”

  Seamus looked at the note his mother had written, now crumpled in his uncle’s hand, and wiped his nose on his arm. “For real?”

  “Yes, for real! I’m sorry, but you’re not going anywhere, buddy boy. So look, why don’t you go inside and watch? Can you do that?” Seamus was still shocked and confused and angry, but moreover he was relieved that his uncle hadn’t started the car and driven him to… wherever they drive kids abandoned by their mothers.

  Larry entered the karate class with Seamus, and when he was sure his nephew was settled, he went back outside and walked around the parking lot, his hands clasped over his head to keep it from blowing apart. This was not the way it was supposed to be. This was big, even for Lucy. Larry felt sick to his stomach. He waited for the nausea to subside before he finally dug into his pocket for his cell phone and called his sister. Her cell phone immediately went to voice mail, and though he knew the response would be the same, he called the number again and again before finally giving up. He wondered how Beatriz was going to take this news. He knew there was only one way to find out, as he climbed back into his vehicle and called her.

  “She did what?!”

  “She left them,” Larry said. “She scrawled a few stupid words on a note and she left them. Just like that.”

  “How are the boys?” she asked.

  “Seamus is in shock. Wally doesn’t know yet.”

  Beatriz’s mind was racing on the other end of the phone.

  “Hello?” Larry said.

  “I’m here,” Beatriz said. “I was just trying to remember if we had any more of their clothes here. You should stop by the apartment and pick up some of their things for the week and then bring them home.”

  Larry was relieved. But then, how else did he expect Beatriz to react? How else?

  “But there’s another problem,” Beatriz said. “How soon can you come home?”

  * * *

  Celeste had gotten farther than anyone could imagine. Lithe and lean, she ran fast. As her aunt was talking to her from the foyer, she was feverishly packing everything she treasured into her backpack, changed into the clothes she wore that first night she showed up on her aunt and uncle’s doorstep, and as soon as she was sure Beatriz was upstairs, she took off. She wasn’t exactly sure where she was going, but once she got out of the neighborhood and onto a busier street, she searched the sky for the downtown skyline and headed toward it.

  Celeste thought things were going okay. She was starting to get used to things in her aunt Beatriz’s house, and she was starting to feel safe. The nightmares weren’t so bad anymore, thanks to her aunt. In spite of her original doubt, Celeste was starting to feel something she never thought she would feel: that she did belong.

  Now, after hearing everything she heard, she felt like an idiot.

  Seamus teasing her was one thing. She could handle him. No problem. And it wasn’t even when she overheard her uncle Tony, secretly talking to his wife—right under her window—that distressed her. But listening to her aunts Beatriz and Norma, arguing about her and the problem she was causing between her aunt and uncle, and especially her mother being someone to be ashamed of—now it seemed all wrong. How could she let herself believe she belonged here?

  Celeste ran, her backpack pounding against her back. No, it wasn’t good at first, she recalled, but it had gotten better when her aunt calmed down, and listened, and sang to her, and told her stories about her mother. She already felt affection for her cousin Raúl—how could anyone not adore him? Carlos seemed nice enough, not that he was around much since he spent so much time with his girlfriend. And she still wasn’t sure what to make of her uncle Larry, but she assumed he was just quiet the way some people are. But now she knew the truth. She shriveled with embarrassment. Did he think of her as an intruder? Maybe that was why he was so quiet around her, the daughter of the black sheep of the family. What could there be to say?

  Celeste kept on running, sweat gliding in pearls down her face and into her eyes. She ran into an intersection without looking, and a car screeched to a stop a few feet in front of her. Her heart leaped into her throat, but she kept on running. She knew that she had overheard conversations she wasn’t meant to hear, but it was too late. Maybe she could run all the way back to El Paso. It wasn’t r
ight, Celeste thought, for her mother to be buried in the ground back there, so far away. So maybe hearing what she had heard was a good thing after all. Maybe it was meant to be. Maybe it was a sign.

  She could feel a blister forming on her heel, but Celeste kept on running. Suddenly, the longing for her mother roared back, fresh and raw. She could feel a stitch forming in her side, so she pushed her fist into it and took bigger gulps of air, hoping to make it subside. But the stitch only got angrier and made her slow down, until she was limping and panting so fiercely, she was wheezing. She saw a bench under a tree ahead of her and sat there for a while to rest.

  How could anyone be ashamed of her mother? Celeste had never given much thought about their life or her mother’s work until she was gone. Her mother did honorable work, everyone said. And while everyone back home had only good things to say about Perla Sánchez, Celeste herself knew that her mother was the last person to say much about herself or her work. In fact, Celeste remembered how her mother avoided talking about the sad business she was involved in. She was always focused on the future, how things would be different when Celeste was grown. Celeste remembered how when another family’s sister, mother, or daughter was found dead, Perla used that as her cue to talk about Celeste’s quinceañera—how it would be a happy day, the threshold to her life, a happy life full of possibilities. Celeste didn’t understand, at first. She didn’t understand how another brutal death would launch her mother into dreamy talk about Celeste’s quinceañera and life beyond it.

  “Someday, you’re going to have your own life. A good life,” Perla had told her. Her voice had been full of such determination, Celeste wondered if Perla was trying to convince herself as much as her.

  “But what will I do?” Celeste had asked.

  “Anything, mi’ja! Anything!”

  “Can I get a job in a factory, like you?”

  Perla hesitated. “Maybe, but believe it or not, you might not want to do that. You might not even want to live here anymore. You might want to go away to school.”

  “I go to school now,” Celeste argued.

  “Sí, but I mean, you do so well in grade school, you will go to junior high, and then to high school, and then off to an even bigger school called college. Like my sister, your tía Beatriz. Remember, I told you about her? You’re just like her.”

  Beatriz was the only person Perla had talked about when she finally talked about her past.

  “She went to a big school up north and became a great woman. So smart, so…” Celeste could see that Perla always got sad when she talked about Beatriz in San Antonio. The one thing Celeste never understood was why, when talking about her made her so sad, she was the one person her mother talked about the most.

  Celeste pulled her backpack off and rooted inside, making sure she had packed the most important things: her wallet with exactly twenty-three dollars inside, the bolsa Ana gave her, her mother’s photo, her white hoodie, and her quinceañera book. She pulled the book out and began flipping through the pages, stopping to look at one of the last things her mother had entered. It was a picture of a basket of lavender daisies she had come across in a magazine. Her mother had carefully clipped and taped the image onto the page and wrote underneath, I think I would like to wear this flower in my hair.

  The flowers, and her mother’s handwriting, and the stitch in her side, and the overwhelming stupidity she felt made Celeste cry. She pulled the book up to her face, wishing she could inhale something of her mother from the last thing she wrote, and when there was nothing, she let out a sob that rattled her ribs and made her head throb.

  The ring of a bell announced the arrival of the trolley, which stopped in front of her. Several babbling tourists climbed off, all looking like startled insects with their enormous sunglasses, trying to get their bearings. The trolley driver offered last-minute directions, as the tourists plotted their course and walked away.

  “Are you coming, miss?” the driver asked Celeste. She sniffed and looked at the driver.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Downtown.” The driver nodded down to Celeste’s feet. “Did you drop that?” When she looked down, she saw Josie Mendoza’s business card, from the day when she delivered the quinceañera book to her. This gave Celeste a new idea.

  “Do you go by the Greyhound station?” she asked.

  “I can get you close enough. But c’mon, if you’re coming. I have a schedule to keep.”

  EIGHTEEN

  By the time Larry got to the house, Beatriz was in over-drive. She sent Ana out into the neighborhood to look for Celeste while Beatriz tore through the house, thinking that maybe Celeste was hiding. She wanted to believe the girl was playing a simple game of hide-and-seek, like Perla used to. If Beatriz looked hard enough, she knew she would find her.

  “Where are the boys?” she asked Larry when he walked in the house.

  “They’re still at karate. They’re okay, for now.”

  As soon as Beatriz knew it was just the two of them in the house, she fell apart.

  “I can’t believe this! I can’t… I can’t lose her! She can’t just disappear on me like that! Please, help me find her!”

  Larry followed his wife as she tore down the hall to the office. He could tell immediately that Celeste was gone. Beatriz began to frantically pull the cushions off the couch and open cabinet doors and desk drawers, as if the answer to where Celeste had gone would be found there.

  “She must have left a note or an explanation!” Beatriz said. “She must have left some information!”

  “Beatriz… Beatriz, baby, she’s not here,” Larry said gently.

  “Don’t say that!”

  “Her backpack is gone.”

  None of this made sense to Beatriz. “But… why? Why would she leave? Where would she go? What did I do?”

  “Nothing. You’ve been great with her,” Larry offered.

  “But why would she leave me? I don’t understand.”

  Larry began to feel small. He had been polite but kept Celeste as a distance. He could admit that. He had spent very little time getting to know her, keeping himself wrapped up in work and then in as many activities as he could with the boys. He could see that Beatriz was working prodigiously to make Celeste feel at home, to help her work through her grief while putting hers on hold—or had she? He had no idea how his wife was working through the loss of Perla, too wrapped up in his own percolating jealousy because the girl got to have Beatriz all to herself when he was most used to having her—at night. He could see that Beatriz was pained and confused and he would do anything to take it away for her.

  The house phone ringing startled them and made Beatriz stop rifling through the office.

  “Maybe it’s Ana,” she said. “Or maybe it’s Celeste. Does she know the number to the house? Did I ever tell her that? I should have told her that.”

  When Larry answered the desk phone, he was surprised by who was on the other end.

  “Hi there. This is Josie Mendoza. We met when—”

  Larry grimaced. “Yes, I remember. This isn’t a good time,” he said.

  “No! No! Don’t hang up!” Josie interjected. “Do you realize that Celeste is not there?”

  “Yes. How do you know that?” Larry said.

  “She just called me.”

  “Celeste called you?” Larry repeated. Beatriz clasped her hands over her mouth.

  “Yes, she asked me if she took the bus to Austin if I’d pick her up and take her back to El Paso,” Josie explained. “I told her to wait there and that I would come get her, but I’m calling you instead. I think you might want to get to the Greyhound station as soon as possible. The thing is, I think she has just enough money to get to Austin, if she changes her mind and decides not to wait for me.”

  “Oh, thank you—thank you very much,” Larry said. When he hung up the phone, he took his wife by the shoulders.

  “I know where she is. Can you call Ana and have her pick up the boys? I’ll
go get her.”

  “I want to come with you,” Beatriz said.

  “I know. But I need to do this, and I need to go now! Please wait here. I’ll bring her back. I promise.”

  Larry drove like a madman, breaking several traffic laws. When he arrived at the Greyhound station, he dashed inside when he heard the last call for the bus leaving for Austin, then rushed outside to the bay where the bus had just finished loading and ran around it, jumping up, looking into the windows for Celeste. When he didn’t see her, he began to call her name. Everyone on the platform looked at Larry with irritation or amusement.

  “Pobrecito,” someone muttered.

  The driver was about to close the door when Larry grabbed the edge and fought to pull it open.

  “Sir! We’re about to leave!” the driver shouted.

  “I’m looking for someone.”

  “Sir, I have to go! If you don’t have a ticket, you need to stand back.”

  “No, please, please. I need to check. Celeste! Celeste!” Larry called into the bus.

  “Ya! She’s over you, foo’!” someone on board yelled. “Give it up! She’s into me now.”

  Larry called Celeste’s name again as the driver slammed the door, nearly snipping off his fingertips. He dashed back inside the station and broke to the front of the line at the ticket counter.

  “Hey! What the hell, man?”

  “Sir, you need to wait your turn,” the attendant snapped.

  “Please, you have to help me. I’m looking for a little girl,” Larry began. “She might be on that bus. Do you have a list of the passengers I can see?”

  “Step aside, sir.”

  “No, please! You don’t understand.”

  “Sir, I’ll help you in a moment!”

  “Yeah, man—wait your turn!” someone shouted from the back of the line.

  Larry was unsure of what to do—jump into his car and follow the bus to Austin or make an effort to commandeer it. His decision was made for him when he saw Celeste come out of the ladies’ room. He marched over to her, and Celeste hesitated a moment before she turned to reenter the restroom.